O'Malleysays prospects of a special session at 50-50: Gov. MartinO'Malley put the chances of calling a special session on gamblingexpansion at "fifty-fifty" and said in an interview that he plansto reach out to members of the House of Delegates to gauge interestin legislation that would allow a sixth casino.

Residents upset at lack of police at meeting about teen's death: Themother of the Baltimore County teenager who died in a physicalconfrontation with an off-duty officer called the lack of policerepresentation at a Randallstown community association meetingTuesday "a cowardly move." Christopher Brown's mother told a crowdof about 100 residents who attended the Stoneybrook CommunityAssociation meeting that she was disappointed that police didn'tsend a representative to the meeting, where residents met todiscuss the teen's death.

Deathof Laurel woman, shot in 1985, ruled 2012 homicide: PamelaProwant was shot multiple times in her apartment in Laurel in 1985,lived with paralysis and used a wheelchair for another 27 years,and died in January of what appeared to be natural causes. InApril, the office of the chief medical examiner ruled her death ahomicide, essentially declaring that the injuries she sustainedalmost three decades ago caused her death this year while Prowant,in her early 50s, was still relatively young.

Ripley'sgreets Baltimore with a sideshow: Benjamin Wade, better knownby his stage name, SideShow Bennie, was one of a quartet ofperformers at Harborplace on Tuesday for the official opening ofthe 32nd Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium. Although theOdditorium opened earlier this month, Tuesday marked the officialcoming-out party. Inside, VIPs such as Johns Hopkins faculty memberJohn Astin -- aka Gomez Addams of "The Addams Family" -- inspectedoddities, including an elephant with two trunks.

New city law to prevent liquor stores from selling snacks, other goods to kids: OnMonday, the City Council overwhelmingly voted to pass a bill,championed by freshman Councilman Nick Mosby, to make it illegalfor liquor stores to sell anything to minors, including seeminglyinnocuous goods such as snacks or T-shirts. Through a spokesman,Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Tuesday she will sign the billinto law. It will go into effect 30 days later.

Reportfinds $2.45 billion in city school building upgrades: FiftyBaltimore schools are so dilapidated or underused that they shouldbe closed or rebuilt, according to a new report that alsoidentified $2.45 billion in school infrastructure needs across thecity. The findings, released Tuesday, were used by school officialsto launch a 10-year campaign to bring the system's buildings up to21st-century standards.

SpringfieldHospital gives names to unmarked graves: Tidy rows of more than900 small gravestones, each with a number but no name, line a steephillside at Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville, a statefacility for the mentally ill. For decades the hospital buriedpatients who died indigent, without family or friends, in SunnySide Cemetery. There they remained in obscurity -- until now.